Created for Good Works

Created for Good Works

A few years ago, my Mom had a streak going of rude flight attendants and bad flights.  Now, Julie Cannon is about the most patient person you will ever meet, but these flights were really testing her. It was the kind of experience where she knew she was being treated more like a number than a person.

The worst example was on one trip, my mom was trying to get some much needed sleep when one of the attendants decided that this would be an appropriate time to break apart the ice bag that had frozen into one solid chunk, which she accomplished by slamming the bag against the ground repeatedly with my mom trying to sleep a few feet away.

Well, finally, one day the streak ended.  My mother boarded an airplane and was greeted by one of the kindest flight attendants she had ever met.  She spoke warmly to her. She looked her in the eyes when they talked and somehow made her feel more like a person, rather than just another number sitting in a seat.

Though it’s hard to quantify how much this meant to her, When I asked my Mom about it this week, she told me that this flight attendant made the atmosphere in the cabin feel like a sunny day.

Those small acts on the part of that flight attendant really made an impression on my mom - so much so that she wanted to say thank you.  Not knowing if she would get a chance to thank her properly at the end of the flight, my mom searched around her bag for a piece of paper, but all she could come up with was an airplane napkin.  So she hastily scribbled the flight attendant a note of thanks and handed her the napkin as she walked off the plane.

Now, the story doesn't end there, but I’m going to wait to finish it because for now, what I want you to reflect on is this - that even a small act like looking somebody in the eye when you’re talking to them can make a world of difference in somebody’s life.  

In that moment, this flight attendant’s was exactly what my mom needed. I would go as far as to say that God created that flight attendant that day, for the purpose of treating my mom with kindness.

That probably seems like a very grand statement, and in some ways it is.  But I also believe that it is absolutely true.  And I believe this to be the case today because our reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians more or less declares as much.  

Listen to what he says in his letter.  Paul writes,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Those verses are at the heart of the Lutheran faith. “You have been saved by grace through faith” means that beyond all shadow of a doubt, your salvation is not dependent on how good a person your are (or aren’t).

In fact, you are saved, just by believing and trusting in that very promise.

And there is so much more I could say about that, but what I want to focus on today is the next part. (quote) “For we are what he has made us,” Paul writes, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

In the first breath Paul says that doing good works can’t save you.  Then in the second, Paul says that God created you for the purpose of doing good works.

It’s a bit of a paradox - like seeing “Chicago Cubs” and “World Series” in the same sentence.  

And the truth is, you’ll never be able to put those two ideas together if you think that life is some kind of cosmic test to get into heaven.  In fact, what Paul tells the Ephesians and what he is telling us today, is the opposite - we were created in baptism for good works.  Or in other words, our goal on earth should be to make this life a better place for everybody to live.  Our Goal is not salvation, because salvation has already been achieved on the cross.

The old cliche applies here. “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”  It’s about making this life better for the people around us.

Our John text puts it another way - For God so loved the world...God loves the world.  He didn't create this earth and all that’s in it because he’s trying to scoot you onto a better place - God created the world - he died for the world - because he loves it.  

If that’s true, as Paul suggests, then I think what we can safely say is this: that God cares so much about the world, that his purpose for creating you is to go out and make it a brighter place.

I can’t stress that enough, because so often we have this idea that the sole reason Jesus died on the cross was so that we could go to heaven.  But in reality it’s about so much more than that!  Life on earth is not a test for the fate of our souls.   

That’s why every Sunday in church we have this long list of prayers.  We don’t just pray for people’s souls, we pray for the earth.  We pray for people who are poor and people who are oppressed.  We pray for the sick to be healed.  We pray for all these things because God cares about what happens here and now.  God created you to help fix some of these problems.  

Thinking back on that flight attendant who was kind to my mom, I couldn't help but think of Paul’s words.  “For we are what God has made us - created in Christ Jesus for good works.”  

This is what we were created for.  This is what Christ died for - that our good works can bring light into the lives of those around us.

I promised I would get back to the story…so here it is.

About a month so after this plane incident, I was chatting with this girl named Kirstin, who I had been dating a few months, and her best friend Kari, when Kari seemed to remember something.  

She asked me if I had an aunt or another relative named “Julie Cannon.” I thought that was really weird because, as I explained to her, that “no, I don’t have an aunt named Julie, because my mom is named Julie.”

Kari, who is a flight attendant, started to explain to us that about a month ago, a woman on a flight she had been working had handed her a napkin.  And on that napkin this passenger had written her the nicest thank-you note that she had ever received - and that woman was named Julie Cannon.

What you know now, and what we figured out that day, was that Kari, my wife’s best friend from college, was my mom’s flight attendant. And of course, when I asked my Mom the random question, if she ever handed a flight attendant named Kari a thank-you napkin on an airplane, she just teared up and said “God works in mysterious ways!”  Indeed he does!

Sometimes, our modern sensibilities won’t allow us to believe that God is in any way involved in our day-to-day lives. We get up, we go to work, we go to school, we come home, we sleep - and so we develop this idea that God is a cosmic clock maker that isn’t active in the daily ticking of our lives.  

Stories like these are reminders to us that God’s love for the world extends to even the smallest things.  They are reminders that God created us for these moments of kindness - and that he cares what happens to his people in ways that are both global, and intimately personal.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you are indeed saved by grace through faith.  But you if you are saved, you are saved for the purpose of reflecting the love of God on the people around you. It’s our mission statement, right? We reflect Christ in message and action.

Go and do likewise.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Grace Upon Grace

Sermon - January 4th, 2015

John 1:1-18

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace Upon Grace

Happy New Year Bethany Lutheran Church!

And Grace and Peace from God our Father, the Holy Spirit connecting us all, and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

I ended 2014 with a very full Christmas!  That is, full of wonderful things - Some beautiful Christmas Services, the story of Jesus birth … full of presents and family and friends.  But what really and truly fills me up most during the holiday season - is food.  

My favorite is meatballs and mashed potatoes. Every time I go home for the holidays, my request is that my mom make them for the family because nobody can make meatballs and mashed potatoes quite like her.  

Every Christmas dinner, I pile up my plate with mashed potatoes upon mashed potatoes - meatballs upon meatballs.  I cover those bad boys in gravy upon gravy, and then I go back for seconds.  

It’s not just meatballs and mashed potatoes that get me.  I eat cookie upon cookie, pie upon pie, stuffing upon stuffing until I start to feel like Paul … upon Paul.  I mean, there were times, when I ate so much over Christmas, I felt couldn’t stand up!  The food just doesn’t run out!

Well, I got home from break full to the gills this year, and the first thing that I had to do when I returned, was take 10 high school youth to an organization called “Feed My Starving Children.”

Brothers and Sisters in Christ - THAT is how you know God has a sense of humor.  Christmas provided an abundance of riches - but afterwards, God reminded me it was time to give back.

In part, that’s what our gospel today was about.  The first chapter of John is telling us who Jesus really was, and what exactly it is that Jesus provides.  

John tells us that Jesus is the Word, and the Light, and the Truth.  And finally, it gets to answering that question, “Why Jesus?”  What’s new and different about this guy? Why exactly does this relationship matter?

John answers it this way.  He says, “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” Grace upon Grace.  That’s a fantastic image, isn’t it? It’s like gravy upon gravy.  It’s the unending pool of grace that doesn’t run out.

John goes on to tell us that it’s from Moses that we get the law, but it’s from Jesus that we get grace.  And it’s not just a little tiny serving of grace.  It’s an abundance of grace heaped upon more grace.  

There is the law, which does a lot of good things.  It sets boundaries, it gives us structure and guidance, but in the end, the power of the law comes from the power to punish.  

But grace is something entirely different. The power of grace comes from freely giving of yourself to somebody else, knowing that there will always be more to give.  Ultimately, this kind of unending grace gets its power from love.

John tells us, THAT, is what makes Jesus different.  What Jesus gives you can’t be found anywhere else.  It’s grace bought with the unselfish love of the cross - Grace upon grace - more than we deserve and more than we could ever use.  

The question is, what do you do with it all? What do you do with more than you could ever use? The only answer, of course, is to pay it forward.

That was God’s reminder to me when I came home from the holidays. The organization that we took the high school youth to, Feed My Starving Children, gathers volunteers to pack dehydrated meals to send to hungry children all across the world.  Our group of high school youth joined up with 40 other youth from ELCA churches across the northern Illinois Synod to do this.  Together with some other groups, we packed a years worth of food for 97 children.

Truly though, there was a LOT of irony in how my entire Christmas played out.  I’m sure all the high schoolers were in the same boat as me - coming back from a Christmas Holiday that filled them up with Christmas meal upon Christmas meal - only to come home and pack meals for starving children.

I mentioned I ate so much for Christmas I could barely stand … Well the first thing we did when we arrived at Feed My Starving Children, was watch a video about a young child in Haiti whom they found sitting in a pig pen, because his legs were too weak to stand up from lack of nutrition.

They showed us videos of him a year or two later, and not only was he strong enough to stand, but he was thriving. He was going to school, and running around with the other kids.  Apparently he had even become somewhat of a chatterbox.

That’s what a little bit of extra time and resources were able to accomplish. We put in two hours and gave that same gift to 97 other children. It was merely the overflow of the grace upon grace that had already been given to us that we passed on to those who needed it.  

God’s gifts overflow.  They are abundant and unending.  And so our response is to give back joyfully, knowing that there will always be another serving.

Often, our response is the opposite.  Fear makes us want to hoard everything that is given to us.  That’s a natural response in a lot of ways. We are biologically trained to want to keep as many resources as we can.  It’s a normal human instinct, but a sinful one.

But this message from John - that God’s love is like grace upon grace - tells us that we can let go.  We don’t have to be afraid of running out.  With God there is always more than enough.  

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s a new year.  And if you have New Year’s resolutions, I ask that you add this  to your list: make 2015 a year where you can live without fear - a year where you can pass on the grace upon grace first given to you in Christ.

And For all He gives, Thanks be to God.

Amen

A Messy Christmas

Christmas Eve 2014

Luke 2:1-20

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church!  May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior, be with you on this fine evening.

My wife and I received an unusual package in the mail the other day.  We got out the knife, opened up the box, which was stuffed full of ...Diapers!  It was full of diapers.  

For those of you who don’t know, my wife and I are expecting our first child in April, and so up to this point, we’ve been getting all of the fun baby stuff in the mail.  We have our crib.  There are little onesies and stuffed animals that keep showing up at our door.  It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to be a parent.  

But diapers?  Am I ready for that? The other day, I had this realization that I have never changed a diaper in my life! Whenever a baby needs to be changed, I do what every rational guy does when - I run to the basement.

Of course I tell this to parents and they all just laugh at me. One guy on the council had changed so many diapers in his life that he was showing off how to do it with his eyes closed...literally.  I told this to another friend from church who told me, “You know, the first time I changed a diaper I threw up on my shoes!” Yeah. Real helpful guys! Thanks for the moral support!

I’m quickly learning that there’s a romantic, made for TV, side of being a parent that’s all high-fives and hugs, bike rides and baseball games. But getting that box of diapers woke me up to the day-to-day reality of being a parent.  It was my first glimpse of the messy side of parenthood.

As much as I would like to take the good parts and leave out the bad ones, the truth is, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t be a parent without changing a butt-load of diapers (pun intended). That would be like saying that you want to experience the thrill of skydiving without the fear of falling. It’s a part of the package, and perhaps we shouldn’t want it any other way.

Every year, I get a similar feeling about the story of Jesus’ birth.  We have such a romantic view of Christmas, that we often miss the bigger picture of what it means for the Son of God to be born in a stable.  

Often, the images we see of the nativity show all of the good, and none of the bad. They’ll paint a romantic scene of a still, peaceful night, with two calm and serene looking parents, surrounded by soft, cuddly looking animals, gentle shepherds, and a host of angels.

The birth of Jesus is often described as a “humble” birth, which strikes me as being a gross understatement. I think a more accurate way to describe his birth would be “messy.”

Mary and Joseph are essentially in a barn. And do you know what goes on inside of a barn?  Everything!  It’s messy in there.  It’s a stable for dirty farm animals, not a hospital! There’s no crib for the baby when it’s born.  It’s just a feeding trough for the animals - a manger.  There’s no soft mattress to lie down on, it’s a bed of itchy hay.  And these shepherds that came to be the first witnesses to the birth of the Savior of the World - they are the poorest folks from the very bottom of society.

It’s as if God chose to dive into this world he loved, but couldn’t truly do so without falling into the messiness of life.

This is how the Messiah comes into the world.  Strange isn’t it? But I can’t help but think that there something beautiful going on here - there’s a harmony between the holiness of God and the messy reality of the world.  It’s a message that God is about to do something new - something completely unexpected.  Instead of destroying the world like in the story of Noah and the flood, this time God is going to enter into it - change it from the inside out.

The story of Jesus birth declares that it’s in the messiness of life that we encounter the holiness of God.  It’s absurdly counter-intuitive.  It’s the moment where you get a box of diapers in the mail and realize that this incredible thing that’s happening is going to be intertwined with everything else life has to offer.

It seems that whenever life gets messy, God is in the midst of it. When the world wouldn’t go near the lepers, Jesus was healing them with his touch.  When people walked around the blind beggars, Jesus walked up to them.  Jesus doesn’t even run from the ugliness of the cross.  This God doesn’t avoid the messiness of life - cancer, poverty, war, hunger, death - this God is in the middle of it all.

I’m getting ahead of the story.  Here, in front of us today is the Messiah - a mere baby - lying in a feeding trough for animals.  He’s in a dirty stable, with filthy animals, surrounded by two exhausted parents. And the only people who know about it are the shepherds working the night shift.

Still, I have to believe that this is the most beautiful scene you could imagine. It’s the most precious gift you could receive. And I don’t believe God wanted it any other way.

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church

and Thanks be to God.  Amen.

You Can Be A Dinosaur

Sermon, Luke 1:26-38

You Can be a Dinosaur

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our Father, the Holy Spirit that connects us, and our Lord Jesus Christ, AMEN.

Do you remember when you were little and anything was possible?  When you were in preschool, or elementary school, grownups would come up to you and they would ask you the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The beauty of being a little kid is that when you are that age, you really can do anything.  If you said you wanted to be an astronaut, adults would look at you and enthusiastically say “Ooh, that’s nice dear.”

But if I told my wife today I wanted to be an astronaut, she would say the same thing - except sarcastically - “Oh yeah, that’s nice dear.”  When you are little the whole world is in front of you - nothing is impossible.

When people asked me as a young child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them that I wanted to be a “Policeman ... and a Donut Maker.”  BOTH.  Because...you know, it’s the perfect combination.

Kids don’t really know any boundaries yet, so when they imagine their future, they think they can be anything.  On Bethany Lutheran’s Facebook page a while back, we shared with you a video from a Christian comedian named “Michael Jr.”  On the video, Michael Jr. is talking about his four year old son, who came up to him one day and said, “Dad, I want to be a doctor.”

Of course, that’s what every parent wants to hear, so Michael Jr. gives a fist pump and says “Yes!  Yes!” And then the son looks up at his dad again and says, “Or a dinosaur.” Or a dinosaur! I love it! He either wants to be a doctor or a dinosaur and the kid doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

You see what I mean don’t you?  To a young child, anything is possible.  Anything!  You can be a donut maker and a policeman.  You can be a doctor.  You can be a DINOSAUR!

But then you start to grow up and begin to discover your limitations.  At some point, we all come up against the harsh realities of our world that tell us what we can’t do.  You’re not smart enough, the world tells you. You’re not charismatic enough.  You’re not strong enough. You’re not educated enough.  You’re not funny enough. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not talented enough. You’re not brave enough.  The older you get, the more walls you discover.  Reality sets in as we learn the boundaries of our world.  

But then we arrive at our gospel story today.  Mary, a virgin, is visited by the angel Gabriel.  And Gabriel says to her, “Mary, you’re going to bear a son.”  Mary was young, but she was old enough to know that wasn’t possible..

So Mary asks the angel, “How can this be?”  And the Angel Gabriel tells her, that God was going to create a baby in her womb, and that she should name this baby Jesus.  Then Gabriel gets to the heart of Mary’s question and says this:

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing will be impossible.  Anything can happen.  With God, the whole world is in front of you - just like when you were a kid.

Believing is the hard part for us adults, because even if we wanted to, I’m not sure we could just turn off the so-called rational parts of our brain.  No matter how hard you try, there is always going to be a part of you that will ask the question “Really?  Was Jesus really born to a virgin?  Did he really walk on water? Did Moses really part the Red Sea?”

You could run yourself ragged asking these questions.  We are pretty much all aware of the boundaries of science.  Water doesn’t turn into wine.  Virgins don’t get pregnant.  People can’t walk on water.

And yet, this story asks us to reorient our entire frame of mind.  The angel Gabriel says to Mary “Nothing will be impossible with God.”  Nothing!  

I can’t stress how important that is, because if it’s true that all things are possible through God - if it’s true that Jesus could have been born to a virgin and Moses could have parted the Red Sea, and the dead could stand up and walk - if it’s true that these things are possible with God, then who knows what other possibilities are out there that we haven’t dared to imagine since we were kids!

In a world where all things are possible through God, then maybe you can be a dinosaur!  Maybe the Cubs have a chance at winning the World Series (next year). 

We could get more serious about it too. Maybe with God, there’s a chance for peace in the Middle East. Maybe with God, there is a chance you to reconcile with your loved ones. Maybe with God, the hopeless alcoholic has a chance of getting sober. Maybe with God, those Pakistani school children will be reunited one day with their parents. Maybe...there is no limit to God’s possibilities.

There’s one more possibility I want to mention. Maybe those barriers that tell you aren’t good enough have never been true with God. Maybe you already are enough to God. Maybe it’s possible that you don’t have to become something else. (That’s grace) Maybe God’s love for you is already so great that he would send his son into the world - born of a virgin in the messiness of a barn.  

I’m not asking that you uncritically believe everything you’re told - even if it comes from the Bible or the pastor - or that you should abandon all reason and thought.  God gave us brains for a reason people!  Please use them.

What I am asking you to do this Christmas season, is to allow yourself to believe in the God in whom all things are possible.   It doesn’t mean that everything you want to happen will, and it doesn’t mean that everything that should happen does.  

But it does mean that you can hope for all good things in this God.  It does mean you can pray for all good things to God and to ask for all good things from him. In your life with God, it means that all things are possible  - all those things that you were too afraid to believe could be possible ... are.

One more thing:  I want you to find a scrap of paper - maybe tear off the bottom of the Tall insert, or the back of a receipt, and write the words “You can be a dinosaur” - not because that’s something that literally could happen, but as a reminder that with God, we can hope and pray for all good things.

Then fold it up and put in your pocket or your wallet or your purse and the next time you take it out, remember that with God, nothing will be impossible.

Thanks be to God,

Amen